About a decade ago, a group of college students from Old Dominion and Hampton universities laid the groundwork for a $112 million Norfolk flood resilience project.

The city ultimately used some of the group’s designs in the federally-funded work to transform the Chesterfield Heights and Grandy Village communities. 

Now, the program is set to do similar designs for five more underserved Norfolk neighborhoods across the Elizabeth River. 

ODU was recently granted more than $700,000 for a flood engineering collaboration including local college students and the nonprofit Wetlands Watch.

The money comes from a mix of federal, city and ODU programs. It’s also part of a larger $10.8 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Service to enhance coastal resilience in Hampton Roads. 

ODU professors will oversee the project through the Coastal Community Design Collaborative, a joint effort with Hampton University focused on reducing the local impacts of sea level rise. 

Under the new grant project, students will work with academics, professional engineers and local governments and civic leagues to create tailored flood mitigation design plans for five communities on Norfolk’s Southside: Berkley, Campostella Heights, Diggs Town, Oakleaf Forest and Campostella.

Those neighborhoods are particularly vulnerable to flooding, and have fought to be part of Norfolk’s separate massive floodwall project.

The group plans to focus on using green infrastructure, or flood solutions based in nature. That can include rain gardens, living shorelines, oyster reefs and permeable pavement that allows water to flow underground.

Many of those strategies were used for the Ohio Creek Watershed Project in Chesterfield Heights, in addition to new pump stations and stormwater infrastructure. 

Officials want designs to be “sustainable, transferable and scalable,” according to an ODU news release. 

The grant began this week and runs through the end of 2025. After the designs are completed, the goal is to help the communities find funding to implement them, ODU said.